The denial call came the very day her dying husband was brought home
Health Sciences North relied on an outside administrator to handle and deny an employee's short-term disability claim. An arbitrator has now found the denial was wrong and that the employer remained responsible for it. In a decision dated May 21, 2026, Arbitrator Lindsay Lawrence found the worker was entitled to the benefits all along and awarded her $7,000 in damages for the mental distress the denial caused, at a time when her husband was dying of cancer.
The case centred on Celine Quenneville, a clerk/typist in the hospital's cardiac outpatient centre since 2008. She applied for short-term disability after her husband was diagnosed in February 2023 with lung cancer that had spread to his brain. She could not sleep, eat or concentrate, and her family doctor diagnosed an adjustment disorder and put her off work.
Her application went to Organizational Solutions Inc., or OSI, the firm the hospital retained to review medical information and recommend whether to authorize the absence. Her doctor's form flagged a recognized mental health diagnosis and rated her ability to concentrate as rare. OSI decided the claim was not supported under the HOODIP sick-leave plan set out in the collective agreement, which requires proof of total disability satisfactory to the employer.
The phone call denying her appeal came on May 2, 2023, the day her husband was brought home for palliative care. She described it as the last...
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